


How Derek Got Odessa (how Odessa got Derek)

by alexiel_neesan



Series: The Cheese 'Verse (ABANDONNED) [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alpha Pack (mention), Boyd is the smartest member of this group, Canon-Typical Violence, Derek Has Issues, Derek has a dog, Gen, POV Multiple, Pack Feels, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, mental heath issues (mention), mention of hunters, mention of injured dogs, odessa the german shepherd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_neesan/pseuds/alexiel_neesan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Spring of their Junior year, after the hunters, saw multiple changes coming to the group of supernatural teenagers and associates.</p><p>(In which good things happen)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Start

**Author's Note:**

> The Cheese 'Verse is an in-progress non-linear, non-chronological series, in which there is communication, a larger magical community, pack feels, cheese making and Farmers' Markets, almost nothing hurt and Derek has a good life.
> 
> Inspired by Tyler Hoechlin's own feels about [Derek Hale's character.](http://cheeseverse.tumblr.com/post/55928606485/i-think-at-the-end-of-the-day-weve-always-really)
> 
> WARNING: descriptions of Derek's thoughts and attitude in this installment can be read as depression.

The cafeteria is noisy, as it always is. Boyd had to get used to it all over again, when he was turned, when his hearing kicked in. By some coincidences he doesn’t believe are actually coincidences, all of them have lunch break at the same time this semester. He uses “All of them” because there is no other term to qualify who Scott and Stiles, Allison, Lydia, Isaac and Erica and him are. They’ve been thrown together and hurt together and hurt by each other. They are not a pack. They are not friends.  
  
This needs to change.  
  
He grabs Erica’s sleeve as she tries to go to their usual corner, drag her toward where Scott and Stiles are sitting. Isaac is a table behind the two, Lydia and Allison another three tables over by the windows. Boyd stares at Isaac until Isaac lifts his head, then Boyd jerk his head in a “come here” gesture.  
  
Stiles says something, his voice rising with the surprise when Erica and Isaac sits down at their table and interrupt his and Scott’s conversation. Boyd ignores him. He just drops his bag next to Erica, then crosses the room to Lydia and Allison. He can feel the four stares at his back. Soon, it’s six.  
  
He doesn’t sit down to the girls’ table, just stand so he can see both of them. Allison is trying to look and not look at him. He doesn’t care about her shooting him, about her guilt, still. It doesn’t matter— they are not friends, and friendship is not what this is about. Lydia is Lydia, high school queen and so-called “nutjob” and raised eyebrow. He has seen more impressive, now, and so has she. In their “all of them,” she’s a force to be reckoned with, and he can respect that. She’s also not going to ask what he’s doing, but he’s not here to play power games.  
  
"I have things to say, and I’d rather not repeat myself." And he waits.  
  
It’s Allison who answers, somewhat surprisingly. “In the cafeteria?” and in that he hears “ _in plain sight?”_  
  
"No one cares," he says, "No one will listen," and he turns back to the table Erica, Isaac, Scott and Stiles are waiting at. He doesn’t look back to see if Lydia and Allison are following.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Danny looking at their strange group. Boyd thinks Danny should know, he’d make a good addition— he probably knows already, but not the way it should be, explained clearly and given time to be understood and believed the way you believe in the sun rising every day, as a proven fact of life. Danny should know, if only to explain why his best friend left for another continent.  
  
Boyd sits down next to Erica. He’s just taking his brown lunch bag out when Allison and Lydia sit on Scott’s side of the table. There’s still yet to be a word exchanged. Boyd quirks his lips thinking Derek would probably appreciate this kind of quiet authority the next time— which segues nicely into why he asked everyone to be at the same table in a hard-to-leave-dramatically environment.  
  
"I’m worried about Derek."  
  
The reactions are immediate. Boyd could track and map their various relationships to the older man based on their face at this instant, on the noises they make. Isaac looks down at his sandwich, Erica tears into hers a little more, Scott makes a face that looks like scoffing, Lydia scoffs, Allison looks at him and so does Stiles.  
  
"And?" Stiles presses, looking around the table. Scott rolls his eyes, and Stiles continues. "No, for serious, is it a ‘I’m worried he’s going to go all Peter on us,’ or a ‘I’m worried about his living conditions,’ or a ‘there are new hunters in town again and after last month’s mess let’s just worry in general’?"  
  
"Peter’s leaving," Isaac says.  
  
Boyd keeps an eye on Lydia, but it’s Stiles who expresses the general sentiment. “Good fucking riddance. Couldn’t we have just killed him again?”  
  
"Cora’s leaving too," says Boyd.  
  
"Why should we care?" Scott’s jaw is clenched, one hand tight around his water bottle. "It’s been mess after mess since he showed up." He holds up a hand before anyone can interject. "I’m not blaming Derek for Peter, or for last month’s hunters— I’m blaming him for his own bad decisions and the Kanima and his inability to not jump to ‘kill’. I’m blaming him for the people who died as a consequence of his actions."  
  
"I’m not saying that to distribute blame. And I’m not pointing at who's right or wrong either,” Boyd says. He finds it interesting that Scott doesn’t seem to care if Stiles is the one jumping to ‘kill,’ as he takes his container of— uh, it smells like cucumber and fennel and freshly pressed lemons when he opens it. Isaac apparently had the same, square glass dish with a lid wiped clean in front of him. When Boyd looks into his bag more, there’s a flatbread sandwich like the one Erica was tearing into with salad and a smell of smoked fish, and extra bread. "I’m trying to avoid a situation that’ll potentially escalate in the future."  
  
Erica hooks her chin on his shoulder. Her hair smells like strawberry shampoo and Derek’s hair-gel. Derek doesn’t have much of a use for it these days. “Boyd— give me your sandwich.”  
  
He glances at her— her bag is open and empty, the remains of wrapping paper shredded. There was no square glass dish. “Where’s yours?”  
  
“Eaten. Ate the second one I had, too. I’m still hungry.” She drags the last syllable out in something of a whine. It makes him think of a puppy. Isaac snorts a laugh.  
  
Boyd chomps a bite of his sandwich, laying claim to it. Erica pouts at him.  
  
There isn’t much noise around the table. It seems— yes. The others never see them interact much. The way you act when you’re running or fighting for your life is rarely how one lives on the day-to-day; maybe they thought Erica and he were silent and only growled at each other, the way they tend to during fights. They stare without staring but for Stiles, who looks at them curiously, cold limp fries smelling of old grease from the lunch line between his fingers. “What are you even eating?”  
  
Boyd chews thoughtfully. He sees Isaac shrugs, lets Erica swipes his extra bread. “I don’t know. Some kind of fish, and cucumber salad.”  
  
“It’s good,” Isaac adds.  
  
“Dude, it looks like it escaped from the pages of a fancy recipe book. Nothing looks like this in real life. Where did you buy that?”  
  
“Derek made it.”  
  
It cuts into Allison and Lydia’s quiet discussion. It makes Scott raises his head from the remains of pizza he was tearing apart.  
  
“Uh. ‘Would not have seen Derek as a cooking wizard,” says Stiles.  
  
"Exactly my point. Who here go to him just to hang? Who knows him? We don’t." The cucumber-and-other-things salad tastes like water and salt, and lemon, and a little bit like the scent of fresh dew. Every day expands his repertory of scents and smells and the barrier thins between the two— every meal Derek cooks them a test quiz and a museum visit rolled into one.  
  
Derek… doesn’t do much, that Boyd knows, has seen. Derek reads, a lot, old dusty tomes smelling of ashes or dust, and supermarket paperbacks. He works out almost obsessively. He cooks. Since the hunters last month, since the murmurs of “college” and “senior year” started, since Peter hinted at plans and Cora hinted at going back on the road as she was doing before the alpha pack caught up to her, Derek seems to do even less, a shadow in his own loft. He only goes out to buy groceries or to run with him and Erica and Isaac and Cora sometimes in the preserve. Neither of those occasions calls for hair-gel, apparently. Derek doesn’t look right with his hair soft and falling on his forehead. Boyd often feels older than Derek looks like, these days.  
  
Boyd calls Derek his alpha, and their relation is still muddied by the events of last year and being caught by the alpha pack, but he’d like to call him his friend someday, too.  
  
“What’s your point here?” Scott looks at him. Derek had said Scott was the alpha of his own pack, what feels ages ago. Looking back it had been such a mess, so many problems piling up that communication could have resolved in a matter of hours— which is why Boyd is doing this. Why he’s speaking up right now.  
  
“That Derek is the only person we know who has been a werewolf for more than five minutes, who we can trust.” He keeps going before Scott can voice an objection. “He does answer questions— but just think about it. He’s been a werewolf all his life. He has no idea what it’s like to be human, what comes naturally and what doesn’t. But he answers when we ask.” He can see on Lydia’s face that she’s intrigued. “He’s not the bad guy. He’s just a guy. Who’s pretty lonely, who never gives up, and who’s seeing his family leave him again.”  
  
“So what, you want us to go sing Kumbaya with him?” Scott crosses his arms across his chest. Allison’s expression mirrors his. “Thanks, I’ll pass.”  
  
There’s a lot more Boyd could say. He could even hit below the belt, mention all the times he was there and saw Derek saving Scott at his own expense, mention how much Derek wants Scott to accept him (it had been a stilted half-conversation— the one that had followed with Erica and Isaac on what ties and bloodlines meant and how they were connected had been easier to go through), mention all the times Scott used Derek for his own gain. But he doesn’t, because he has only one side of the story, because he’s not blind to Derek’s faults either, because he knows Scott has his own reasons. He’s not privy to them, and he could ask— but he won’t.  
  
Boyd shrugs. “We’re pretty much all in the same boat whether we like it or not.”  He was not expecting to fix everything in one conversation. He’s just nudging things, hopefully in the right direction.  
  
The discussion pretty much ends after that. Allison and Lydia leave, not calling any goodbyes (but the glances between Allison and Scott are pretty obvious). Then it’s Scott and Stiles’ turn, Stiles offering a “see you later.” He had a look in his eyes— the last time Boyd had seen that look, Stiles had persuaded Derek and Scott to trap the hunters who had been trying to kill them with disturbingly detailed plans and research. Peter had looked impressed. Isaac leaves pretty fast after that.  
  
Erica hooks her chin on his shoulder again, tearing the paper that had been warping her food. “Scott and Stiles were upset before you even started.”  
  
“Do you know what about?”  
  
“No, but we’ll hear fast enough.” She sneaks her arm around his, hand warm on his sleeve. “You really think this is going to help?”  
  
He thinks about “all of them,” the not-pack, the not-friends, the relations he saw in the discussion— Allison and Scott, still, and Isaac too; Lydia interested in knowledge, Lydia and Stiles hating Peter, Stiles gathering information; Scott and Stiles always, complimenting each other. They all have ties to each others.  
  
“Maybe. We’ll see.” He wishes Erica had not eaten his extra bread— salt and lemon and dew taste of needing to be anchored to the ground, plant and thick. He’ll have to tell Derek Isaac liked the salad, Erica loved the sandwiches. Maybe he’ll tell Erica and Isaac to say it themselves— nudging things, one step at the time.  
  
He leaves the cafeteria hand in hand with Erica.


	2. Derek

This is Derek’s life.  
  
The loft is empty during the day. It echoes. The stairwell creaks. So does the window, when there is too much wind. He sees his betas before school, and they even spend the night sometimes. He likes that. He likes cooking for them— Boyd always tells him how much he likes the food, and how much Isaac and Erica enjoyed it. It feels nice to know it’s something he still knows how to do right.  
  
Isaac used to live here, to have a room, then he left, bouncing between Erica’s and Boyd’s houses.  
  
Cora lives here too. He sees her at night, mostly.  
  
She’s leaving.  
  
He’s not stopping her.  
  
He can’t. She’s his sister, blood and family, but she’s not pack, not really. She grew up. She had other experiences. She doesn’t fit in Beacon Hills, is not interested in staying here. By the few stories she told him, she’s not interested in staying anywhere. The pack she claimed as hers is a nomad pack, going around the world, a safe structure for wolves and supernaturals who want to travel. He almost wants to join her for a while.  
  
His duty is to his family territory here.  
  
Peter is leaving, too.  
  
Derek wants to feel bad for feeling relieved. For feeling like he won’t have to kill his uncle again, and like him leaving is just easier. Peter can go and be someone’s else problem. Derek is done with him, done with the damage he did to the pack and the others.  
  
Derek is just done.  
  
The loft is empty.  
  
He feels like he feels the first semester he was at college, uprooted and homesick for someplace that did not exist anymore. Floating. He even got a notebook out, like Eireen, the alpha of the pack he was staying with then had recommended. The pages have been blank for a week. He doesn’t know what to start with.  
  
The hair brushing his forehead has stopped feeling weird two days in stopping to use hair gel. It feels softer now, a touch too long.  
  
He doesn’t know what to do with himself.  
  
In upstate New York, with his foster pack, the Ackers, it was easy. The farm and everything had to run, so he helped run it. Taking care of the vegetable gardens and the goats and the chickens and the rescued farm animals, and help feed the pack, and make cheese were simple goals. In college, it was easy, too. He had something to do, something to achieve, and he had the ways to get there. Here he doesn’t have a job, much less a garden to take care of in the loft. There are no guidelines on what he’s supposed to do. Now he’s the one to set the rules, he’s the one who has to deal with things he doesn’t know, Alpha packs and Darachs and hunters and the Monster of the Week.  
  
He likes to pretend to not know pop culture around Scott and Stiles. Stiles’ eye rolls when he gets he’s been played are becoming legendary. It makes Derek smiles, sometimes.  
  
Interacting with Scott is still a work in progress.  
  
The blank notebook is open on the table, light coming from the window falling on it.  
  
Derek sits there, in sweatpants and teeshirt and hooded sweater, his feet bare against the cold floor. It’s not that cold for winter. It’s Northern California. He got used to New York state’s winters. Laura loved the snow, liked going to Buffalo for New Year.  
  
He makes a series of short parallel lines on the first page, twelve in total.  
  
The first one gets labeled “January 2011.” He doesn’t put more than that. He wouldn’t know where to start. Laura calling him. Going to Beacon Hills. Laura dead. Leaving New York State and the farm and the foster pack. Forgetting his life.  
  
The last one is called “January 2012.” His now and then. It’s been an entire year.  
  
He gets up and make himself tea. It’s been enough progress for one day.  
  
+  
The notebook stays open two more days. No-one mentions it. Everyone has been starting to talk about college, more than they had last semester. It sounds like an escape from Beacon Hills, from the supernatural. Derek knows he should tell them he went to college, about what it was like, what to do. He should tell them he can help. That some colleges have tracks for established pack members and supernaturals, scholarships and special financial aid, special housing and accommodations.  
  
He feels like he doesn’t know how to talk anymore. He’s never been overly chatty. There a difference, however, between being taciturn and     
stopping to talk, barely answering questions, resorting to body language to “talk.”  
  
Boyd invites him to join his family for dinner. Derek has been there, several times, after the mess with the Kanima, and after the Alphas. They know about werewolves, and he likes Boyd’s Mom, and his grandmother. They seem to like him too. Boyd’s dad is more reserved, more suspicious of him, as he should be, as they all should be when Derek is in the picture, look at him living in the tower, weren’t those complexes condemned six years ago, didn’t he kill his sister, why is he walking in the street—  
  
Derek refuses the invitation. He wants to give an excuse, a reason. Boyd just nods after the refusal and doesn’t ask more and that hurt more than anything else.  
  
He goes for a run on his own, after. He runs all night.  
  
He crashes when the sun barely starts to light up the horizon. Cora wraps herself around him instead of going to hide in her room, and he sleeps better than he has in months.  
  
+  
He fills the twelve marks, in the notebook. With the months of the year, first, then all the events.  
  
January, Laura’s death.  
  
February, Peter’s death.  
  
April, Peter’s resurrection. Derek doesn’t know enough about magic to know the specifics of the ritual, can’t remember most of that night. He wants to ask, to know, to never be caught unaware again.  
  
He doesn’t know what to put down for May. He knows he should write something. The Kanima. Loss of agency. Loss of pack. Being used.  
  
In the end he doesn’t write down anything.  
  
June to September gets labeled Alphas and Darach. August gets “Cora.”  
  
October stays blank, a curious respite.  
  
November to December only has “Hunters.”  
  
January is just January.  
  
He wishes he was still in college and could just ask to talk to his foster alpha with an email. He wishes he was still in college and he could knock on his friend then boyfriend’s door and just exists for a little while, let someone else keep him safe.  
  
He leaves the notebook open and goes to the grocery store. He has a pack to feed and time to kill.  
  
+  
“How kind of you to cook me a farewell feast, nephew!”  
  
Derek doesn’t react to Peter’s entrance. Keeping the beef and pork meatballs brown on all sides is more important than anything Peter is going to say.  
  
“Ah, are you going to ignore me? Where are my tearful farewells?”  
  
“Goodbye, Peter. Have fun wherever you are going. Don’t come back.”  
  
“You wound me, truly.” Peter leans on the lone kitchen cupboard, close enough that Derek can feel his body warmth to his right. “I hope you’ll allow me one meatball. I will certainly miss your cooking skills. The Acker pack taught you well.”  
  
Derek freezes, slides his eyes to Peter. The meatballs remain unturned in the pan.  
  
Derek never mentioned his foster pack.  
  
“Did you think I didn’t know, Derek? I had the same instructions as you, as Laura, in case anything happened. Did you enjoy upstate New York? The fresh air, the farm?” Peter takes one of the meatballs already done and waiting on a plate, his arm passing in front of Derek. He eats it slowly, making a pleased hum, licking his fingers. His claws are out. “Wherever he is now, I’m sure your father is happy to see that the tradition, and quality, of hospitality of his pack lives on with you.”  
  
“You don’t believe in an afterlife anymore than I do.”  
  
“I never said anything about an afterlife.” Peter pauses, dramatically, his eyes on his claws. “After all, seeing which kind of spineless wolves he spawned, who knows if the miserable bastard isn’t still running away from here.” Derek grips the spatula so hard it breaks in his hand. “You would know all about running—“  
  
“Enough!” Derek turns on him, eyes red. “Get out. You’re not welcome in Beacon Hills anymore.” He puts all the Alpha power he can grasp behind it, tries to feel the territory, its borders, telling them to reject Peter.  
  
It’s more energy and power he has used in months, since the hunters, perhaps since the Darach, and he can feel it, fizzling at the edge of his capacities. Peter only takes a step back. He should have left on the spot. Derek takes care to not pant or lean on the stove— he can’t show weakness. If Peter is still bidding for the place of alpha, now would be the time to make his move. Derek will not die in his kitchen.  
  
His uncle only crosses his arms, staring at him. “You should have stayed in New York.”  
  
Derek refuses to reply, to keep going. Peter’s words are here to hurt him— and they are doing an excellent job of it. He stares Peter down; the alpha stares the beta down. Is Peter even a beta? Derek just rejected him, forcing him to omega status, unless Peter has a back up plan. And if one thing never changed, is that Peter always has another option at hand.  
  
Peter finally takes a step back. And another. Another. Another until he’s at the door and not once Derek took his eyes off him.  
  
“This place is only hurting you, Derek.”  
  
The door closes loudly, the metal screeching.  
  
Derek slumps, his heart racing.  
  
The batch of meatballs in the pan burns. The smell of charred meat, even tempered by spices and herbs, sends him retching.  
  
He’s not entirely sure how he makes his way to the Sheriff’s station. The building is a couple blocks away from the main street and the center of town, as if left behind when Beacon Hills grew. It’s the middle of the day.  
  
The deputy at the front desk looks a bit puzzled to see him, but calls in the Sheriff for him all the same, telling Derek that the Sheriff would see him in a moment and to just wait there. He thanks her, wonder if he went to school with her, maybe. He know he should pay attention to what’s around him, but his thoughts feel like holding water in open hands.  
  
It takes him a second to raise his head when the Sheriff calls his name. He gets up before it can be followed by a question —any question— and lets the Sheriff lead him to his office.  
  
“What brings you in, Derek?”  
  
The Sheriff knows, now. The big “Knows.” He has known since the Darach tried to sacrifice him to the Nemeton in the Preserve along with Melissa McCall and Chris. He had had many questions, a lot of them that Derek was unable, or uneasy, to answer.  
  
He’s an authority figure Derek can trust. The revelation is… unsettling, in Derek’s already shaken thoughts.  
  
“I…” he starts. He buys himself time by looking around the office, taking a few steps in, letting the Sheriff sit down— there are pictures, and medals, and closed files piled on the sides. The Sheriff was in the Army, he recalls. There’s a picture of Scott and Stiles among the pictures of officers and K-9 units and End of the Year parties with the city council. “Peter is leaving town,” seems like the best thing to say in the circumstances.  
  
The Sheriff is still waiting, still looking at him.  
  
“I’ve forced him out,” Derek explains. “The territory should reject him. If he comes back… it’ll probably be best handled by human law.” And the correct bullets, but the Beacon Hills Police has had significant changes of ammunition as of late.    
  
The Sheriff nods. “Anything else you’d like to add to that?”  
  
Derek allows himself to sit down, to gather his thoughts. Peter’s still family, even if he’s not pack anymore. “I don’t know.” But— he’s so much more. More than Derek can handle. “I don’t know,” he repeats.  
  
“Are you alright, son? You look like shit.”  
  
Derek raises his head to stare at the other man.  
  
“You’re usually more polished,” the Sheriff says, gesturing at Derek’s sweatpants, and soft hair, and the stubble turned full-on beard.  
  
Derek puts a hand to his face, self-consciously. He hasn’t— paid much attention to that, lately. Paid much attention to anything.  
  
“It’s been a year,” he finds himself saying.  
  
The eyes of the Sheriff soften in sympathy. Not pity— the look of someone who lost family too. He gives a sigh, then gets up and locks his office door, before using his desk phone to call the front desk and saying he was not to be disturbed. Derek feels only confusion.  
  
When the Sheriff sits back down, it’s on the bench on the opposite side of where Derek is sitting. There’s enough space between them for two cups of coffee. There are even rings in the wood, leftovers of cups past.  
  
“Anything you want to say will not leave this room— that includes my son, and any of our mutual acquaintances.”  
  
“Why?” There’s a lot more to ask, but best start at the beginning.  
  
“Derek, contrary to what my son and his friends, and the hunters we arrested last month, and a lot more people that I won’t mention now, seems to believe, I am not unaware of what happens in this town. Now that I’m in the know even less. I know a good deal of what’s going on, and see a lot. And what I’m seeing right now, is that you could use a little support. And that I’m willing to be it, if you want it.”  
  
Derek stares at him. The Sheriff looked a lot like Stiles, but steadier. Older too, of course, and Derek catches himself wondering if Stiles will age the same, with laugh lines at the corner of his eyes and forehead lines that told a story of many raised eyebrows. The Sheriff is an authority figure Derek can trust.  
  
It still doesn’t make sense.  
  
Sense or not, Derek has questions the Sheriff has the ability to answer.  
  
“Peter said…” And he trails off there, it being not the best start. “Laura took care of all the legal matters before we left.”  
  
The Sheriff gives him a minute before he needles him into continuing. “She was going into Law, wasn’t she?”  
  
“Yes. She was a paralegal in Manhattan, wanted to get experience before going for the bar. After the- the fire, she took care of all the family business and assets. We never talked about it.” He had rarely seen her, always going to see her in Manhattan or meeting her for a weekend in another city. She was an Alpha in her own right, with a place in New York, contacts, a head for business, the respectability brought by her name and hard work. He has been a foster pack member in their father’s family pack, a kid who didn’t talk for almost a year, a college student without plans for the future. She had been his Alpha and his sister, but they hadn’t lived the same lives.       
  
“I never saw the police report of the fire, or the autopsies reports.” He had never wanted to. “But Peter said something about my father and—” And he has Cora alive when he thought her dead, so maybe his father is alive too, his father human-born of the Acker pack who read him Isaac Asimov as bedtime stories and taught them about car maintenance on a Jeep Wrangler and made his mother laugh everyday and cooked like no-other.  
  
“I really hate your uncle, you know,” is the Sheriff’s answer, once enough time has passed that it’s clear Derek is done talking at the moment. “I obviously don’t know what he told you, can only see how you are reacting to this— but there is one thing that is absolutely clear to me: regardless of what he said, how he said it, if it was the truth or not, that’s not the important part. He did this to hurt you.”  
  
“And he succeeded,” says Derek, staring at what’s immediately in front of him. At the moment, it’s the Sheriff’s desk, and the various papers on it. He doesn’t want to see the Sheriff’s expression.  
  
Silence falls, enough to hear the ringing of phones and muffled conversations in the rest of the station behind the door.  
  
The Sheriff shifts, the sound of clothing on wood suddenly loud. “Derek, you have the right to see the files. I’d feel better if you thought about it,” and he throws up a hand to stall what Derek had been ready to say, whatever that had been, “Really think about it. It needs to be for you, and for your peace of mind, not to prove anyone wrong or right or to give them power over you.”  
  
Derek’s gaze slides back to the desk, to the papers, to the pictures. He doesn’t have pictures up, in the loft. “I think… I want to know.” He shakes his head. “It can wait.” He rubs his hands on his face, smells spices and meat over the dust, gunpowder and paper of the station.  
  
“Since you said Laura was taking care of it, have you looked at the rest of your family’s legal matters?”  
  
Derek nods, his hands dropping to between his knees. “Most of it, last year. Getting the land and the house back is still on-going.” Talking about it, he can smell the ashes and rotting wood of the place he called home. It’ll never be there again, the roof finally caving in in December. He doesn’t know— what happened that they lost the place, what will happen, what he will do once he has it back. Because he will have it back. Any other option is unconceivable.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the Sheriff frowns, hear the slightly faster tick of his heartbeat. Both those indications of interest, or of something else, fade fast, smooth back into the concern the man has shown since Derek walked in. “If you need a hand with that, I can probably dig, or find someone who will know about it.”    
  
No lie in the Sheriff’s heart.  
  
“You should know,” he continues, “that I suspect my predecessor and several of the senior deputies either knew about,” and he makes a hand gesture, one that Stiles described as “Dad’s Saying The Supernatural And Everything ‘Cause He Still Can’t Say It Out Loud,” “or were paid to look the other way by hunters.” Like the inspector for the fire. Like half a dozen events he had heard of on the farm and through Laura.  
  
“You think that’s what’s going on with the house and the land.”  
  
“It’s a possibility.” The Sheriff lets a silence hang. “I’m sorry, son.”  
  
Derek closes his eyes. In between his hands, he can see that the sneakers he’s wearing aren’t tied. There’s a couple spot of cooking grease on his thighs, still smelling like spices and herbs. He can’t remember the last time he showered. He can’t remember leaving his loft to go anywhere else than running or groceries in… weeks. He can’t remember talking to anyone other than Peter, Cora, and Boyd in a week.  
  
“I don’t think I’m okay,” and he can’t take the words back once they are out. He can’t take the openness away, have to trust, desperately, that he made the good call, that he can lean on the Sheriff, on this adult.  
  
Derek hears a sigh, the rustle of clothing again. He crosses his arms, keeps staring ahead and down.  
  
“One of the hardest things I learned, after Stiles’ mother died, is that you don’t have to be okay.”  
     
It stops there.  
  
Derek keeps breathing, keeps silent.  
  
“I’m going to get us coffee.” The Sheriff gets up, arms along his sides, deliberately open. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.” The station seems shockingly loud when he opens the door.  
  
Derek stays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The event of 2011 in the Cheeseverse differ significantly from the canon. All will be explained in due time.  
> I have no excuse for the delay in getting back to this universe, and thank you for your patience. 
> 
> ([the cheeseverse](http://cheeseverse.tumblr.com/)) ([the author](http://alyyks.tumblr.com/))


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles likes Boyd. The dude is cooler than a cucumber, to butcher the expression. He has proven more than once that he is all graces under pressure, and sharp, and smart, and yes, Stiles does have a bit of a crush. Considering the crowd he is running with, it is very hard not to develop crushes left and right. Supernatural creatures are hot and smart and more often than not scary, which he has a bit of a reaction to. Fear-boners, it’s a thing, he sees no reason why he should be ashamed of it.  
  
He thinks Scott is probably the less scary of the bunch but that might have been due to repeat exposure and forever-friends-for-ever since they were four.  
  
Currently, Stiles is catching up to Scott in the corridor of good ol’Beacon High, after a somewhat tense lunch. He’s thinking of what Boyd said, and agreeing with his point. They need to be a group, if pack isn’t in the cards. Maybe friends, but Stiles isn’t putting too much money on that for the short term. Too many tempers, and in the short time they’ve been brought together, already too much history.  
  
“Scott, hey—“  
  
Scott keeps walking, so Stiles falls in step with him. Their next class is on the other side of the building, and in a good fifteen minutes. Enough time to grab the relevant books from his locker and poke the elephant in the room.  
  
“So. That was kinda tense. Sorta nice too, though, did you notice how we filled a whole table? No having to deal with random people filling the end ‘cause the space is open and that table’s not claimed. I liked that.”  
  
Scott makes a noise, that sounds like an agreement. Stiles takes it as agreement and continues.  
  
“Kinda nice to see the others interacting like that too— would you have thought that Derek was the kitchen wiz? Maybe I should ask him for tips. It’d be tastier than to rely on casseroles, take-out and Hungry Man dinners.”  
  
Scott stops, and turns around to face him. “You’re pretty transparent, you know. What are you going at?”  
  
Stiles squares his position, tucks his thumbs under his shoulder straps, faces his best friend. In the middle of the busy corridor, no-one is paying attention to them, aside from the fact they are in the way and not moving. Like a little island in the current of people, thinks Stiles distractedly. “I think Boyd was right—“ Scott rolls his eyes with his whole head which looks so much like how Derek does it it hurts Stiles’s neck. And he starts to walk. “—hey let me finish!”  
  
“Nope. No, Stiles, no, I am not joining his happy cult, even for the food, I don’t want to hear what he wants to say, I want him to stay away from us, to not be dragged into his poor planning—“  
  
“You’re not seeing the whole board—“  
  
“—Chess analogies, really?”  
  
“—and don’t get me wrong, the poor or even straight up lack of planning actually served all of us really well in the last clusterfucks by making us totally unpredictable, but we need to plan ahead. We need to see the whole board. And you’re not ok with Derek for reasons that are reasons, but he’s on the board. And so are you. We’re all on the board.”  
  
“Since when do you like him? You wanted to write him off as dead too, remember?”  
  
“That was a year ago! And to be honest he terrified me then. And he still does sometimes. But my point is, I grew as a person since, dramatically. So did you. And you went along great with him, pretty sure there was bonding. I’m not sure I get what changed so much that you’re up to throw the dude under the bus again when he’s pretty much the only person in Beacon Hill that hasn’t tried to kill you. And me. Us.”  
  
Scott stops again, and turns to Stiles, sighing. “I’ve seen what he did to the hunters, okay? I can’t follow someone who’s that uncaring. That willing to kill. I can’t.”  
  
“Scott.” Stiles stops too. “I thought we talked about that. Half those plans were mine. So half the blame should be on me. Why do you hate him that much?”  
  
“I don’t hate him.” Scott rolls his eyes at Stiles’ expression of disbelief. “Okay, I hate him for being a creeper, and a smart ass, and never having a straight answer. I hate him for wanting to make me pack when all he wants is more power. I hate that there’s always hunters, or something, that people that have nothing to do with any of this get hurt and killed.”  
  
“You’re thinking about the traps, aren’t you.”  
  
“I’m thinking about the traps,” Scott sighs, and it’s just wrong to see him defeated. Stiles slings his arm around his shoulders and drags him to their next class.  
  
The last hunters, the very ones Scott had mentioned as one of the reasons he couldn’t trust or like Derek, had dropped traps all around the Preserve, in a what had been a characteristic display of brute cruelty and lack of care for collateral damage. Almost a month after they had been driven out of town, for the majority of them, or killed, for the two that didn’t take Derek and Allison seriously, the police was still getting calls about pets getting caught, about wildlife found trapped and dead days later. Thankfully, no human or supernatural had been caught in them. Yet, was Stiles’ main thought. No person killed yet. Someone had to stay realistic.  
  
The Sheriff had been reluctant to give an estimate as to when the danger would pass, when the news crew had asked. In the privacy of his house, he had admitted they had no idea how many traps had been installed, and how wide the perimeter they had been installed within the half-wild Preserve was. He had called for caution and staying on the established tracks through the news crew.  
  
And this morning, Scott had learned that the traps had made a new victim, one of the police dogs. Stiles had heard the call on the police scanner his father had stopped fighting him to discard, and Deaton had called Scott, asking him to come as soon as classes were done. The dog’s name was Odessa, she had been Deputy Callahan’s partner for the past year, after Deputy Callahan had came back out of early retirement after Matt’s rampage at the station. Deputy Callahan hadn’t taken Odessa’s injuries well, from what Stiles has heard— Odessa hadn’t taken her injuries well.    
  
Odessa’s a police dog and Scott and Stiles know all of them by name. It makes the traps so much more personal.  
  
Privately, because Stiles despite what everyone seems to believe, knows when to not say stuff out loud, Stiles thinks Scott uses Derek as a scapegoat. He was the first supernatural person Scott knew, he was involved into everything from the beginning— it’s easier to stay on the first impression than to reconsider. And boy is there much to reconsider. The traps and the fucked up hunters worse than Gerard Argent, it’s just the cherry on top. The thing is, Stiles knows Scott. There is no use in continuing to talk or push at this point, he’s just going to clamp up.  
  
“Can I come with you to Deaton’s?” Stiles asks, as their teacher starts talking about the various World War Two fronts.  
  
Scott nods.  
  
Stiles plots.  
  
+  
  
“Huh,” says Stiles, when he and Scott meet up in the parking lot of Deaton’s.  
  
“Huh what?”  
  
Stiles keeps staring at his phone. “Dad wants me to pick some extra food on the way back, he’s invited Derek over ‘cause he’s at the station. Or maybe he’s forcing Derek to come for dinner? His words are open to interpretation.”  
  
Scott frowns, holds the back door of the building open. “Did something happen?”  
  
“I don’t know— Jesus Christ!”  
  
The loud, terrifying barking doesn’t stop at Stiles’ jump in the air. There is one large cage in the back room, just as they enter, and the dog inside keeps barking, loud and angry and terrifying and in pain. Deaton leans from the doorway to his office, and seems relieved.  
  
“Scott—“ he starts to say, and that’s when Stiles recognize the dog.  
  
“Odessa?” He drops to his knees, at a… somewhat respectable distance from the cage and Odessa’s open jaws. She’s curled on herself, hiding her injuries— and it’d work but for the swaths of bandages around her.  
  
She doesn’t stop barking, and she doesn’t seem to recognize him.  
  
“I will need your help,” Deaton is saying to Scott. “I’m afraid I reached the highest safest dose of painkillers and sedatives I could give her—“  
  
Stiles tunes out the discussion. He’s focused on Odessa. She’s growling at Stiles now, the kind of growl that comes before jumping to her target’s throat, and he moves back a little. If she jumps now, she’s just going to knock into the cage’s bar and hurt herself further and he can’t—  
  
He can still hear Deaton and Scott talking and preparing themselves— Deaton wants Scott to use his werewolfy mojo to control her pain so that Deaton can do what he has to do.  
  
Stiles glances down at his phone, still in his hand. Another glance, and Scott and Deaton are too busy to see what he’s doing —they trust him to stay out of the way.  
  
He takes a gamble. And hopes for the best.  
  
+  
  
Odessa hasn’t stopped making noises, even with Scott’s mojo. It’s horrifying in ways Stiles can’t put his mental fingers on. He’s almost too busy keeping his mind from running into truly horrible directions to notice the front door opening and Derek coming through.  
  
He’s not sure it’s Derek at first. Boyd’s earlier quiet _“I’m worried about Derek.”_ takes on a whole other dimension Stiles would have honestly preferred no to encounter. The dude looks rough, unshaven, unkept, and Stiles is ready to write off the whole thing as an hallucination because those are sweatpants. Derek and sweatpants until then had never existed in the same universe. It doesn’t make sense.    
  
“Stiles?” Derek asks, and in this moment there’s a truly heart-breaking howl coming from the back. Derek fixes on it— but not so much that he forgets who’s in the room with him. “What’s going on?”  
  
Stiles wiggles his phone. “Well dad told me you were coming over so I suspected you were with him and long story short, I think Deaton and Scott could have another pair of pain-sucking hands on deck.”  
  
Derek’s glare, when he turns away from looking toward the noise, doesn’t rate a five on his usual expressions’ rating system. Stiles doesn’t know what else to do but shrug. “One of the police dogs got caught in the hunters’ traps and—“  
  
He doesn’t have the time to finish his sentence that Derek is shouldering on past him muttering something that sound like “the traps are poisoned” and wouldn’t that be something they should have known about— and Derek is in the back with Deaton and Scott.  
  
Stiles stays around, but there’s no human yelling, and the canine yelling quiets down for what he hopes is really a good, healing reason.  
  
He texts his father after ten more uneventful minutes pass.  
  
 _I’m bringing pizza. Meat lovers. Derek can sleep on the couch after dinner._

**Author's Note:**

> Original updates, art, extras and more at [The Cheese 'Verse!](http://cheeseverse.tumblr.com)


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